Radia Show 1008: "Zärtlich geht die Welt Zugrande: Still Looking For Medusa" by Nina M. W. Queißner and Linda Weiß (Radio X)

ZÄRTLICH GEHT DIE WELT ZUGRUNDE: STILL LOOKING FOR MEDUSA is a tribute to corals, the sensitive critters of Gaia’s underwater realms, showcasing their profound ability to forge symbiotic relationships. Corals, as holobionts for zooxanthellae, epitomize interdependence; as reefs, they offer shelter to many marine creatures; as strong formations, they modulate the ocean’s ebb and flow into gentler currents. As the ancient ancestors of Medusa, they hold the spirit of nature’s often misunderstood and transformative powers. Medusa herself, a female figure of Greek mythology, represents the recurring theme of metamorphosis and the complex dynamics of power and seduction, banished to safeguard the male gaze.

Through a rich saturation of marine bioacoustics, noise pollution, mythic tones, Nina M. W. Queißner and Linda Weiß beckon you to immerse yourself in the deep, dark blue soundscape. Here, lose your way, welcome the feeling of otherness, and give yourself to the waves of yearning, and acknowledge cold shivers. Picture Medusa, whose symbiosis sustains the life that thrives beneath the waves.

underwater sound recordings: Coral reefs (Red Sea, Egypt), shipping traffic on the Main River and the English Channel of the Alabaster Coast; additional sound recordings: Baking soda in water, hot oil, ice cubes, crystal glass and water, tadpoles, rain on polyamide, etc., synthesizer, melodica, Sansa.

image: detail tentacular beings under salinity stress, space sound installation Looking for Medusa, Senckenberg Naturmuseum, Frankfurt a. M. (DE), 2023, photo by Linda Weiß.

concept/production: Nina M. W. Queissner

NINA M. W. QUEIßNER adopts a poetic and research-oriented approach using recording technologies and soundscape composition to explore the experiential dimensions of sound and listening, closely integrated with multidisciplinary concepts of landscape and environment. LINDA WEIß creates immersive installations that examine the dynamics of shared spaces, engaging in dialogue with more-than-human collaborators such as fungi and bacteria. Together, they work on the ongoing project LOOKING FOR MEDUSA that invites audiences on a journey through past and future mythologies. Starting with Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the project weaves together references from cosmologies and ecosystems to create an experimental habitat for speculative future coral creatures. Their audio-visual installation was first exhibited at the Senckenberg Nature Museum in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, in 2023. Follow their research on tempe-corals.tumblr.com

credits:
great many thanks to NINA M. W. QUEIßNER and LINDA WEIß for ZÄRTLICH GEHT DIE WELT ZUGRUNDE: STILL LOOKING FOR MEDUSA!

metadata:
ZÄRTLICH GEHT DIE WELT ZUGRUNDE: STILL LOOKING FOR MEDUSA by NINA M. W. QUEIßNER & LINDA WEIß
radia production: miss.gunst [GUNST + radiator x]
production date: july 2024
station: radio x, frankfurt am main (germany)
length: 28 min.
licence: (cc-by-nc-nd) NINA M. W. QUEIßNER & LINDA WEIß

additional info:
includes radia jingles (in/out), station and program info/intro (english)

links:
radio x & radiator x: www.radiox.de – www.radiox.de/radiator-x
GUNSTradio & radiator x: www.gunst.info – www.gunst.info/radiator
Looking for Medusa: tempe-corals.tumblr.com

Image Credit: Linda Weiß 2023

Each week one member of the Radia Network produces a show for all the others. The Radia Network emerged from a series of meetings, clandestine events, late-night club discussions, and a lot of email exchanges between cultural radio producers across Europe. The topics vary and the reasons for forming a network are many, but Radia has become a concrete manifestation of the desire to use radio as an art form. The approaches differ, as do the local contexts; from commissioned radio art works to struggles for frequencies to copyright concerns, all the radios share the goal of an audio space where something different can happen. That different is also a form in the making – radio sounds different in each city, on each frequency. Taking radio as an art form, claiming that space for creative production in the mediascape and cracking apart the notion of radio is what Radia does.

It is producing radio stuff that is hard to describe. Some of it can be labeled radio art, or experimental radio, or creative radio. Sometimes it talks, sometimes it doesn’t. It can be noisy, or a kind of soundscape, or a documentary, a document, a talk, a performance. Each and every week, one of the partners will provide the network program, commissioned and produced especially for this purpose: being broadcast by all the partners and made available online.

Some things have to be said about all those partners. They are radio stations, of the independent, non-commercial, community, cultural species. They all speak different languages, and this should create interesting problems. Although initially they were all European radio stations this has changed over time and Radia has become not only larger but also more diverse: 17 partners in nine countries and growing all the time.

Radia Stations

* Campus Paris (Paris, FR)
* CFRC 101.9 FM (Kingston, CA)
* CKUT (Montréal, CA)
* JET FM (Nantes, FR)
* Kanal 103 (Skopje, MK)
* Orange 94.0 (Vienna, AT)
* Radio Campus (Brussels, BE)
* Radio Corax (Halle, DE)
* Radio Grenouille (Marseille, FR)
* Radio Helsinki (Graz, AT)
* Radio Nova (Oslo, NO)
* Radio One 91 FM (Dunedin, NZ)
* Radio Panik (Brussels, BE)
* Radio Papesse (Firenze, IT)
* Radio Student (Ljubljana, SI)
* radio x (Frankfurt/Main, DE)
* Rádio Zero (Lisboa, PT)
* RadioWORM (Rotterdam, NL)
* Reboot.fm (Berlin, DE)
* Resonance FM (London, UK)
* Soundart Radio (Dartington, UK)
* TEA FM (Zaragoza, ES)
* Wave Farm WGXC 90.7-FM (New York, USA)
* XL Air (Brussels, BE)

Affiliates

* Kunstradio (Vienna, AT)

More information at http://radia.fm